Gabriel, filthy and stinking, covered head to toe in excrement, sat beside Zha Kang. On a night like this, he was the one who had suspended the snowflakes above their heads, allowing Zha Kang to drink at his leisure.
Compared to the days when he still had his wings, Gabriel was now incomparably weak. He could only stop time within an area the size of a motel bathroom.
Back then, he had been someone capable of going Fifty-Fifty with Lucifer.
But that was back then. After the Body of God was slain upon the throne, Gabriel's faith had been shaken, and he fled into the human world.
Not only had he cut off his own wings, but he had also become addicted to everything humans could be addicted to—cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, gambling, carnal pleasure, and more.
His angelic body kept him from dying or falling ill from such things, but the erosion of faith in his heart was the deadliest poison of all to him.
Constantine drank cup after cup of the cheap liquor he had brought, while the angel silently watched from the side, his eyes as numb as those of a homeless man on the streets of New York staring at hurried pedestrians.
No hope, no thoughts, no goals.
They both merely wanted to live, but what were they living for? Even now, Gabriel had not found the answer.
"Tut! Ah!" Constantine smacked his lips, grinned as he stroked his beard, and set down his glass on the bar. "Oh, right, old friend. Did you know Lucifer's back?"
At the news, Gabriel's eyes moved. Though he was filthy as a diaper fished out of a garbage heap, his golden pupils remained clear.
"Lucifer? My brother, my sin."
His voice was difficult to make out, as though he had